Jawad Bolani

Iraq's interior minister, whose forces are accused of complicity in sectarian death squad killings, defended his agency in an interview with U.S. reporters Friday, and said he had the backing of the prime minister and parliament to remove corrupt and incompetent police commanders from the streets.

Iraq's interior minister, whose forces are accused of complicity in sectarian death squad killings, defended his agency in an interview with U.S. reporters Friday, and said he had the backing of the prime minister and parliament to remove corrupt and incompetent police commanders from the streets.

Five U.S. security contractors arrested in Baghdad have been cleared in the killing of a fellow American contractor, but two of them face drug-related charges, the Iraqi government said Thursday. Three of the U.S. contractors, and an Iraqi colleague arrested with them, will be released on bail and will still face charges of carrying unauthorized weapons and fake documents, government spokesman Ali Dabbagh said.

THE FIG LEAF that Iraq has a fledgling but functioning government that stands between its sectarian strife and full-scale civil war was blown away in a raging political storm this week. It's now clear that not only is Iraq's government incapable of controlling events on the ground, the warring Sunni and Shiite-controlled ministries can't even agree on what is happening beyond their walls. The fragile coexistence of Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq's new parliament is in peril.

Sunni Arabs lashed out at Shiite Muslim politicians during Friday prayers, angrily condemning the government's arrest order for Iraq's top Sunni cleric. Interior Minister Jawad Bolani announced Thursday that Harith Dhari, chief of the Muslim Scholars Assn., a Sunni group, was wanted for inciting violence. Bolani is a Shiite.

Iraq's new interior minister on Monday announced charges against 55 police officers and other department employees, amid heavy U.S. and domestic pressure to clean up his security forces. U.S. officials and members of the once-dominant Sunni Arab minority believe the ministry has been infiltrated by Shiite Muslim militiamen and become a tool in the country's sectarian war.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki on Thursday emerged virtually unscathed from a parliament session called over this week's car bombings in the capital and a series of explosions since August that have caused lawmakers to publicly question his handling of the security situation in Iraq. As Maliki parried with lawmakers for nearly six hours, the Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella group for insurgents that includes Al Qaeda in Iraq, claimed responsibility for Tuesday's bombings, which killed 127 people.

An explosion killed a police commander Monday during a visit by a man in a wheelchair who might have been a suicide bomber or an unwitting victim of insurgents, officials said. If the man was used by militants, it would be the third time this month that Iraqi security forces say disabled people were used to carry explosives that killed themselves and others.

U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said Saturday that he supported the Iraqi prime minister's plan to disband sectarian militias through negotiations while using his military to go after the most extreme elements. Khalilzad said he disagreed with recent complaints by U.S. military officials in Iraq and politicians in Washington that Prime Minister Nouri Maliki hasn't been doing enough to rein in Shiite militias implicated in thousands of death squad killings. Khalilzad said complaints by senior U.

Iraqi authorities on Friday freed most of the approximately two dozen security officers detained this week for allegedly aiding insurgents and remnants of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, two Interior Ministry officials said. At least 22 of the officers were released and the rest should be let go by this morning, the officials said.

The Iraqi police Wednesday released three of the five U.S. contractors who were detained last week in connection with the slaying last month of an American in Baghdad's Green Zone enclave, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said. The men were freed on bail, but were forbidden to leave Iraq during the investigation of the death of Jim Kitterman, a 60-year-old construction contractor from Texas, said Rafae Munahe, a senior advisor to Interior Minister Jawad Bolani. "They cannot leave the country.